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Archiver > IrelandGenWeb > 2003-10 > 1065583923
From: "Jean Rice" <>
Subject: [IGW] America - Land of Promise (1760-1775) -- (Wills HILL/the Earl of Hillsborough)
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 20:33:57 -0700
SNIPPET: Between 1760 and 1775, the idea of America as a good place to live swept the British Isles. More than 55,000 Protestant Irish and 40,000 Scots emigrated to the colonies. The British were vastly alarmed by this massive outflow, which represented 3% of the population of Scotland and 2.3% of the population of Ireland. London's "Gentleman's Magazine" wrung its editorial hands over a story reporting that 43,720 emigrants sailed from five Irish ports between 1769 and 1774. Almost as alarming was the emigration of more than 30,000 Englishmen in the same period. The government created a Register of Emigration in 1773 to find out why people were leaving the British Isles. Insiders knew the answer before they started the investigation.
Wills HILL, the Earl of Hillsborough, the haughty aristocrat who served as secretary of state for America from 1768 to 1772, had already informed Parliament that multitudes were flocking there "for no other reason but because they hope to live better, or to earn more money...than they can at home." Hillsborough thought England should not tolerate such ambitions among the "lower sort." For the public good, Parliament ought to "lay a restraint upon poor people leaving the place of their birth without leave (permission) from the magistrates of the place." Benjamin FRANKLIN, who had many dealings with Lord Hillsborough, most of them unpleasant, succinctly explained what the noble Lord meant by the public good. He was "terribly afraid of dispeopling Ireland" because most of his income came from the vast estates he owned in that oppressed country.
Even before the Revolution began, America had become a beacon of hope for those who yearned for a decent life. Indeed - a typical Northern farmer in Colonial America owned 10 head of cattle, 16 sheep, 6 pigs, 2 horses and a team of oxen - and was usually able to sell two-fifths of his produce for cash. Americans had the highest per-capital incomes in the world.
-- Excerpt, "Liberty! The American Revolution," Thomas Fleming (1997)
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